My life has changed. A lot. This Thursday will be two weeks my husband has moved out. This Saturday will be two weeks that my (step) daughter and her boyfriend and their dog moved out… So I am alone now. I think I like it. It’s a change from the last 7 years of having them in the house… but I can reclaim my space and my life. And while I am sad at the end of another stage of my life (more guilty than sad I fear) I am thrilled at the new beginnings this offers me.
I think that as much as I love Brian I have to love myself more. I think I have to admit that as much as I loved and needed him I don’t need him now. I don’t need to have my life filled up every second of every day. Yes a warm body in the bed is nice. Yes someone to come home to is nice. Yes being loved and adored and wanted is very nice. But if the person loving you is sucking the life out of you with neediness is it worth it?
Why did I marry?
Well the first time, I was young, I wanted OUT of my parents house and a good excuse for getting out of school… I thought I loved him. We married I was 21. At 24 I had son #1 At 26 I had son #2. At 28 I told him “I want a divorce”. I had grown tired of being told what a useless person I was. Bless my parents. They took care of me and helped me. I found a job, got a home, had a life.
The second time…. well ugh I hate to even talk about it…. Mom died in late 1995. Ex husband had remarried either late the year before or earlier in 1995… I was ALL alone… kids were living with ex most of the time… I was vulnerable. I was in a bad place in my brain… I met the second disaster online at some dating site I think… gawd I have blocked so much of his mess in my life out… He came down, and never left… in July 1996 I married him. He didn’t really want to get married but I rather insisted. It was for lots of reasons… health insurance for him comes to mind mostly… lousy reason to get married. Tax break for me… another lousy reason… He never lived with me full time. He would flit back and forth between Baltimore and Brooklyn and that started happening more and more towards the end. I think we had about THREE good years… He did horrible things like steal my jewelry and my car. He lied to me. He cheated on me… he tried to kill me… That divorce was final I believe late 2002.
I met Brian about the same time. Online end of November 2002 We were supposed to be friends… he was “engaged” to a woman online. WE met in person a week later December 1, 2002. He moved in with me March 2004 and we married December 2004. We were happy. He brought his daughter with him and she became mine. I will always be mom for her if she wants… how could I not… I love Brian I do. But he does not love himself and my loving him is not enough for both of us… His pain and suffering kills me. His lack of self-esteem kills us both. I want him to be happy, my life has changed. I was physically TIRED when I married Brian. Hauling around 300 pounds is exhausting both physically and mentally. Getting married made good sense to me… I loved him. I wanted to take care of him and his daughter. I am a caretaker at heart. I wanted to be loved. Who was going to love a 300 pound woman who did NOTHING but sit around the house…. I thought I loved me. I thought I was happy I thought all was fine.
Then we had the Gastric Bypass surgeries. And while I wanted to pretend I did not and would not change, I have. I’m not tired anymore. Not Mentally. Not Physically. Not Emotionally. I have grown and matured. I realized that love is NOT enough to sustain me. I need more. I need someone to question me, to challenge me to balance me, and yes to need me. But also to FEED me. Feed me emotionally, feed me mentally, feed me spiritually. Brian NEEDED me but he could not feed anything but my need to be needed. I discovered that unconditional love tinged with fear and insecurity is ugly and painful to live with. I could no longer mirror back to him those feelings. We deteriorated. I did not help. I could have stopped feeding my soul with another person but I was afraid of being sucked back down into the muck and mire that was suffocating me. So I was OPEN about my relationship with him. I thought that would help. I thought that would make it better. Brian could not cope. I tried to explain to him that I could love two men. He could not accept that. He left me. I understand that. I let him go. I did not stop him. I could have easily stopped him. I could have complied with the ending of my new relationship but I did not. I chose that relationship over my marriage.
I have spent my entire life settling. On my weight, my looks, my loves, my house, my car, EVERYTHING… now this is not to say that I am going to STOP settling, but at least I am more aware of it.
Currently my weight is up about 5 pounds from where i like to be but I have some leeway and I have not yet had plastics… I do have to watch it however… while they do fix our bellies, they don’t fix our brains. And my BRAIN wants to self medicate with food. I am working hard on this. But it’s hard. I’m scared. Of life, of love, of living, of getting too thin, of getting fat again. Of the plastic surgery that looms on my horizon.
I hate that I’m admitting my failure at a THIRD marriage but I am. How embarrassing this is for me, to admit how badly I screw up relationships. How bad my choices are. How I have not learned from my past mistakes. Will I continue to repeat the same mistakes?
Will I learn from this mistake… probably not. “Why not?” you may ask… I mean seriously.. THREE failed marriages… how could I be so careless or cavalier… How could I HURT people like I did? I hurt Brian. His family. His daughter. She was my daughter for so many years… now she’s gone to me too. I’ve probably upset my dad.
I know our mutual friends are destroyed. They have no clue what to say or how to act. Brian and I are trying very very very hard to make sure we all still stay friends. I hope we can pull this off… It’s early on so maybe time will soothe all the wounds.
Why do I worry so about others? Because I love and care about them. Because I’m embarrassed at my mistakes and failures. I want to be a good person. I want to take care of folks. I want to be a role model someone that folks can look at and think “I wish I was like Nessa”… now they just look at me and shake their heads and have pity for me for being such a screwed up thing….
And I have guilt over the end of this marriage. I admit it. Brian is not totally to blame. I will not let the sword fall on his neck totally. Yes there are things that I did to facilitate the end of the marriage. I attempted to add something to my life that was lacking. (see below)….. and Brian did not cope well with it. I can’t blame him and yet at the same time I can. He told me in August it was ok. He told me in November it was OK. He kept telling me it was OK even after he would tell me he did not want me to do it. I TOLD HIM to TELL ME NOT TO DO IT…but he couldn’t or wouldn’t. And I would not or could not stop. And honestly,I am not sorry for this. Brian has left and is involved with a young woman and her family. I hope she gives him all he needs and wants and he can do the same for her.
He always, until recently, needed to have OTHER people (read women who wanted him romantically) in his life… and yet once I tried to add someone he suddenly wanted to go back to a traditional marriage. This seemed unfair to me.
I married Brian because I loved him. I loved him because he loved and needed me. It was easy. And at 300 pounds I was TIRED all the time. Physically TIRED.
WE need to be apart and not married. Love is NOT enough. I care about him and want him happy and healthy and well. I wish him no ill will. I hope in the long run we can ALL be friends.
And yet I will survive. I will mature and grow and thrive.. and I doubt I’m done changing…
***********THIS IS BELOW*************
Of course I’m not totally alone… there is “THE BOYFRIEND” but I will leave that for another post…
Tags: boyfriend, brian, divorce, guilt, Jim, kids, marriage
